Basil of Caesarea Quotes

The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong.

Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.

Being a mom, I am even more inspired to really help make a difference. I can't imagine what it would be like if my child didn't have a meal to eat.

The billionaire who sits on his money and doesn't do anything for the common good - I'm not interested in that person.

When you see in places like Africa and parts of Asia abject poverty, hungry children and malnutrition around you, and you look at yourself as being people who have well being and comforts, I think it takes a very insensitive, tough person not to feel they need to do something.

When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.

It is nothing less than a shocking indictment on western society that we spend so much on ourselves and so little on those on have nothing.

We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth

What would you think of me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death?

The general idea of the rich helping the poor, I think, is important.

Some people don't have a home or a place where they can cook a warm meal, and so we're thankful for the generosity of YG and the 4Hundred Waze Foundation to feed the community in the city of Compton.

When we say, 'We are starving,' we have to remember that there are people who are literally starving. If everyone fed one person, one meal, we could make a huge difference.

Charity is to unburden you from your guilt, so you say, 'I am doing something: I going to open a hospital, going to open a college. I give money to this charity fund, to that trust....' You feel a little happier. The world has lived in poverty, the world has lived in scarcity, ninety-nine percent of people have lived a poor life, almost starving and dying, and only one percent of people have lived with richness, with money - they have always felt guilty. To help them, the religions developed the idea of charity. It is to rid them of their guilt.

Let no one go hungry away. If any of the kind of people should be in want of corn, supply their necessities, provided it does not encourage them in idleness.

He that distributeth not That which he hath received-- His food, his drink, his sustenance-- Unto devotee, brahman, beggar, wayfarer-- Such a low man as he, they say, is like Unto a lack of rain.

If our poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because neither you nor I are generous enough. It is because we are not instruments of love in the hands of God. We do not recognize Christ when once again He appears to us in the hungry man, in the lonely woman, in the child who is looking for a place to get warm.

Now it may seem so far from where we all are It's something we can't neglect It's something I can't neglect Now won't you give some bread to get the starving fed

If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt.

He who gives to the poor, lends to the Lord. But it may be said, not improperly, the Lord lends to us to give to the poor.

...won't you give some bread to get the starving fed

We have to get out of this mindset that the rich will do the business and the poor will have the charity.

The rich...should beg the poor to forgive us for the bread we bring them. Healthy people sometimes feel they need to beg forgiveness too, although there is no reason why. Maybe we simply ask forgiveness for not being born where these poor women have been born, knowing that if we lived here too, our fate might well have been the same.

There are many poor men and poor women: set apart some one constantly to remain there: let the poor man be though but as a guard to thy house: let him be to thee wall and fence, shield and spear. Where alms are, the devil dares not approach, nor any other evil thing.

Many people despise wealth, but few know how to give it away.

The hard gives more then he that hath nothing.